President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign office is scheduled to open today in Taipei, beginning with a performance by a group of dancers as the office began setting up fan pages on Facebook aimed at attracting first-time voters.
Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) and Yin Wei (殷瑋), both spokespeople in Ma’s campaign office, called “Taiwan Cheers, Great (台灣加油讚),” said on their Facebook pages that the dance troupe was composed of 20 young women born in the 1980s. The group was first launched during the five special municipality elections last year, and more have joined today at the invitation of Ma’s campaign office.
Lee said that the dancers would be performing a “Taiwan Bravo Dance” during the campaign office’s inaugural news conference today, “which they spent nearly one month practicing.”
A video clip of the dance can be already seen on Facebook.
Lee said the dancers would dance to the tune of a children’s song and use their dance to cheer for Taiwan, ending the performance by shouting the slogan: “Taiwan cheers, great!”
Meanwhile, Ma’s campaign office also produced a TV campaign ad, which will be officially released at today’s news conference as well. The ad can already be seen on Lee and Ying’s Facebook fan pages.
The TV ad is a collection of past campaign commercials, and recounts true stories that happened at different corners of the country, Lee said.
Yin said that they had chosen an exciting song by well-known singer Emil Chau (周華健) titled Let the World Call this Name Out Loud (讓世界叫響這個名字), with the lyrics that say: “We want the world to show their thumbs up to us, pass on our stories, there’s no miracle in our success, it’s the insistence that matters, we will make the world fall in love with Taiwan, one time after another.”
Lee said that farming villages, temples, harbors, the Kaohsiung Arena, the Mass Rapid Transit system in Taipei and Aboriginal dances are all included in the TV ad, showing the vibrancy of Taiwan.
Following the first TV ad, the campaign office will release other campaign ads on the Internet to show the power and recount the stories of Taiwan, Yin said.
Ma’s opponent in the presidential election, Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), meanwhile is expected to open her first campaign office in central Taiwan some time in the middle of this month. Her campaign headquarters is expected to be located in Banciao District (板橋), New Taipei City (新北市).
Additional reporting by Peng Hsien-chun and Vincent Y. Chao
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